Verse 19

¹⁴Having answered just this much by way of giving the king's own words back to him, the great sage, quiet by nature, in whom what causes the not-self had ceased, went on carrying the king's litter as before, working off by undergoing it the work already begun. ¹⁵And he too, son of Pandu, the lord of Sindhu and Sauvira, whose right to enquire into what is real was well established by faith, heard the brahmin's words, which untie the knot of the heart and agree closely with the books on yoga; and he got down in haste, came with his head to the ground of his feet, asked pardon, and, the pride of being a god among men gone out of him, said:

¹⁶Who are you, going about hidden? You wear the thread of the twice-born. Which of the shaken-off ones are you? Whose are you, where do you come from, and why are you here? If you are here for our good, are you not the white one? ¹⁷I do not fear the bolt of the king of the gods, nor the spear of the three-eyed, nor the rod of Yama; not the weapons of fire, sun, moon, wind or the keeper of wealth. What I fear greatly is the slighting of the brahmin line. ¹⁸So speak, you who hold to nothing, who go about like a dullard with the strength of your knowing hidden, past every bound. Good man, we cannot break open your words, strung together with yoga, even with our minds.

¹⁹And I have set myself to ask the master of yoga, the highest teacher of the sages who know what the self is, Hari himself come down as a portion of knowledge: what shelter is there here?